


The Return of Spring

by Happyorogeny



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, Mentioned violence, violence aimed at civilians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:37:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: Tyrande is patient.





	The Return of Spring

Tyrande was well aware that her Sentinels felt sorry for her. Poor Tyrande, they thought as she passed on quick feet. It was unfair for Elune’s chosen to be so luminescent and yet lonely as the moon.

She supposed she did seem very solitary to them.

She slept alone in a den of tangled roots and awoke early to run a patrol of the forest and study scouting reports. When she bathed in the starlit waterfalls she did so with Ash’alah and her bow at hand, least she have to leap into combat. Yes indeed, she made her way through the world as isolated as an eagle, losing herself in prayer for hours on end, fletching arrow after arrow after arrow, sometime even joining them to teach her Sentinels how to shoot with unerring aim from the back of a galloping saber. 

Shandris taught them well in her new position of general, but she needed to quiet their talk. It was a foolish sentiment, if kindly meant. She had never been alone, not with the hand of Elune guiding her every step.

But even without that aspect of the divine they needed to learn to look closer. She would have to drop by and set them to tracking mice, until they learned to notice details.

The westerly side of her rootbound home had leaked and rattled in the wind these past few decades. But now it was grown over with a thick layer of ivy and she slept warm no matter how the storm howled. 

The ground before her den was a carpet of flowers, no matter the time of year. Even in the dark and icy depths of winter tiny red firebuds melted their way through the snow. Her favoured forest tracks were lined with an honour guard of strawberry plants and the apple tree just to the lee side of her home had grown into a true orchard. In the spring she returned home to a veil of falling blossoms. In the autumn she was never short of fruit.

In the last dozen centuries or so she hadn’t once had a saber trip over tangled roots, hadn’t once twisted her ankle in a hidden rabbit hole. 

In Suramar she had never felt safe. Here, she had never been so happy. She thought her heart might break from it. 

This was not to say her life was a peaceful one. War and death sniffed them out like a ravening wolf, even in the twilight depths of the forest. They were tormented by bears the size of houses, twisted by the ever-lurking Nightmare and sent rampaging into villages and temples. Satyrs whispered to the vulnerable and lured them into the shadows, never to be seen again. 

Even now they had trouble with orcs who would raid those villages on the edge of the forest, throw the civilians out of their houses and set their dwellings alight, pull up their food-groves and chase their animals into the forest so that the stricken Kaldorei had no choice but to move.

Her sentinels brought them death, every time. They could go elsewhere for their wood, to forests that weren’t the homes of her people. 

They feared her, as well they ought to. She alone could turn back the average warparty. But as heady as it was to take her fate into her own hands, the death of those who would threaten them wasn’t enough. Someone had to breathe life into the world, twice racked by sundering. That was Malfurion’s job. They were the two faces of the moon, light and dark. Balance. 

And just as there was a time of darkness and isolation there would be a time of light and companionship once more. 

Tyrande awoke and the day was warm for spring. The swallows had returned from their migration a week early and flitted in great numbers across the meadows. A brown bear peered at her blearily as she and Ash’alah leaped past, heading towards the broad, shallow river in the eastern reaches of the forest. Her saber had shed her winter coat overnight and was in fine form, scent marking every tree they passed. Tyrande eased her feet out of the stirrups and lay back flat Ash’alah’s back, gazing up at the canopy overhead. It was just coming into evening but the Blue Lady already gleamed in the sky, as if impatient.

The river gurgled contently over rounded stones, carrying white chunks of ice down towards the ocean. She set Ash’alah loose from her tack so that she could hunt in the shallows and settled down with a handful of spare bowstring and a wad of beeswax.

She knew patience well. It was easy to be patient when she understood that all things were a cycle. The rising and falling of the tide. The waxing and waning of the moon. The blossoming and the withering, the sleeping and the waking.

She waited and she worked and she made the bowstrings supple as a spring snake. All her tasks were attended to. The scouts had their orders, the new patrol rotas were posted, the priestesses could carry on the spring ceremonies without her guiding hand. The Alliance leaders didn’t hang from her skirts with questions. Their enemies were in retreat and the druids bent on repairing the land that had been burned and salted. 

Dalla and Sel'ania came trotting along the riverside path five minutes early. Their sabers were dusty and breathing hard. She stood and held out her hands as Dalla’s nightsaber nuzzled her. She had hand reared this grey leopard herself, after her mother had been lost in combat.

“Report?”

Poor Dalla thought she was been subtle though she grinned like a bobcat.

“There’s a druid looking for you, ma'am.”

“Hmm. They must be a little confused from their shapeshifting. A druid has no need to be looking for me.”

They glanced at one another. She thought Sel'ania might well vibrate out of her saddle with impatience. They didn’t want to ruin the supposed surprise. How sweet.

“No, no, they were very specific in asking for you, at your lodgings.”

“Well that’s rather familiar of them isn’t it? I think I’ll have them wait a while.”

“But-!”

“Yes?”

Dalla twisted her reins.

“They said it was urgent.”

“Did they now?” She scratched her fingers into the soft grey fur behind the saber’s ears. “Well I suppose I mustn’t keep them waiting too long now, must I?”

Ash’alah had trotted over to butt heads with other cats. She lifted her head as Tyrande whistled, revealing a large trout in her teeth. Tyrande stashed it into the side packs and settled low to her back. 

“Take the fastest path home, my friend." 

Ash’alah was not the mount she preferred for speed. She was her battlecat, bred for courage and bone breaking strength. But the forest itself seemed to open up before them and though she was growing old the nightsaber put on a fresh burst of speed, leaping fallen trees and splashing through streams and ponds. Just before they reached home she began to purr loudly and accelerated. 

Her husband was waiting for them in the clearing just outside their home, his antlers wreathed in flowers. Snowdrops and bluebells bloomed around his feet and he had found the time to wash and groom his hair so that it curled softly down his back. Even his beard was braided into a complex hatchwork pattern.

He laughed as they came hurtling over the edge of the clearing and held out his arms. Ash’alah took the bit between her teeth as Tyrande tried to slow her down and tackled him at full speed , sending all three of them sprawling.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, check out the rest of my writing and find me at https://happyorogeny.tumblr.com/writing


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